Tyson Fury is a mass of ­contradictions. One minute, he is talking about the ­tranquility of a Belgian woodland where he has been training and how much of a softie he is, the next the beatings he intends to mete out to opponents.

In one breath, he says he is never nervous before a fight, the next he warns of the butterflies that will litter his stomach before stepping into the ring against Kevin Johnson on Saturday night. Equally, he talks about having the experience to be the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world in two fights’ time before claiming to be no more than a three-fight novice.

Quite what circulates around Fury’s mind is unclear. In conversation, he is much more softly spoken than you might expect of a 6ft 9in boxer to the extent you couldn’t imagine he would hurt a fly. Then there’s the Fury by name and nature that occasionally rears its ugly head, most recently as he vented his spleen against fellow British heavyweight David Price live on television.

An interview he did almost exactly a year ago gave an insight into a fighter spiralling out of control, at least mentally. He spoke of an occasional desire to drive his car into the wall at 100mph, of being mentally disturbed and needing a psychiatrist.

Whether it’s true or not, he insists such thoughts are a thing of the past. “I’m all over that now,” he said of a once deep depression that he claimed afflicted himself and his brothers. “The depression I was going through was because I was not training enough and not doing the right thing.

“I didn’t know how to make it better. It was a mental problem and it was getting me down. It was one of them things. It’s gone now, I’ve got a better camp. I don’t think I have anything like that anymore. I don’t know anyone in life that doesn’t have days where they go ‘this is s***’. I’m no different.”

If Fury is to be believed, he found salvation in a small log cabin in Essen on the border with Belgium. Out front sits a small children’s slide, a nod to when his wife Paris and the couple’s two children, Prince and Venezuela, come to visit.

It has been six weeks since he has seen them as he follows his usual pre-fight routine, which culminated in him vacating that particular abode, owned by his uncle and coach Peter, on Saturday before his final preparations in Belfast to face Johnson.

Quite what the modern-day British heavyweights’ obsession with woodland is - David Haye is currently immersed in the Australian jungle on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here - an oft-tortured soul in Fury is at peace in the surrounding greenery of tall pines three miles away from the nearest shop.

“There’s nothing there it’s perfect,” he said. “You just sleep, eat or train, that’s it. It would be a lovely relaxing spot if I wasn’t preparing for a big fight.”

The fight in question is against Johnson, a 33-year-old fighter who once took Vitali Klitschko the distance before losing on points, Johnson is a stand-in after original opponent Dennis Boytsov pulled out of the bout.

Fury calls it “the biggest fight of his career” but, for him, it is a stepping stone to the Klitschkos, a world-title fight eliminator.

“It’s a big step up for me and a tough fight but there’s no way he’s going to beat me,” said Fury. “He won’t have seen combinations like mine against Klistchko or had anyone work the body like I do. He’s had his time at 33.”

With that, there is an uncertainty in Fury as he points out the change of opponent has not been easy - “it’s been tough as different opponents have been lined up then changed and I’ve had to change my approach." But that doubt is quickly erased as he points out “but Johnson’s not had much time to prepare for me either."

With Vitali, the older of the Ukrainian brothers seemingly destined for a career in politics, Fury admits that Wladimir seems the likelier opponent in his quest for a world title.

Having watched Klitschko fight against Mariusz Wach, Fury believes Johnson will prove a tougher obstacle. “Look at his face after that fight - he’d hardly got hit and he looked like he’d taken a beating,” said Fury. “So just wait until someone hits him properly like me.”

The name suggests that Fury was born to box - his first name from the former American heavyweight, born into gypsy stock and to a family of fighters. Growing up, boxing was the sporting obsession.

“While other kids watched cartoons, I watched video tapes of boxing,” he says. The family showreel included Tyson’s own historic bouts when the heavyweight division was at its pomp. Ironically, it was not his namesake that he aspired to be but Michael Spinks, whose career and unbeaten record were destroyed in 91 brutal seconds against Tyson in 1988.

“People just remember Spinks for that but he was a great, great fighter,” says Fury, who describes himself as “born to fight”, who had his first bout aged 16 but, eight years later, only believes that he is now realising his full potential.

Of his own career to date, Fury says: “I have 19 starts but I consider myself a three-fight novice now. I want to get on and be known as a great fighter, known throughout the world. I want to be able to live a nice life.”

He adds: “I owe everything to boxing,” pointing out it has given him and his family a comfortable life and that “because I had no education to speak of, I couldn’t have done that otherwise. It’s given me everything. I don’t know what I’d be doing otherwise - some old job I suppose."

Despite the self-assessment as a three-fight novice, he sees himself as ready to take on anyone. “I say I’m a novice as those are the only three fights I prepared properly,” he says. “I’ve been in camp for most of the last 18 months. I’ve totally given up my life for this. Before, I was fat and unfit and would just get through the fight like they were wars.

“There were times in those fights I could have given in but, once you do that once, there’s no giving up. You’ll never give up. The only way someone will find me giving up is if I’m nailed to the canvas.”

Fury talks about heavyweight boxing “dying” and has set his sights on being its life-support machine. “I wanted to make it great again and not just in Britain but all over the world, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, wherever.”

First he has to keep those past demons at bay as well as see if he has the capabilities to match the current world’s best in the ring.

The former could well prove the harder obstacle for him to overcome. In that quest, religion and his belief in God is a recurring theme for him.

“God tells us to live every day as if it’s the last,” he says. “God’s a major part of my life. If it’s something you start me on, I can’t stop. But in short I believe that God has given me a talent.

“Ok, I’m not the best Christian in the world or best person in the world but I believe that if you’ve done wrong and ask for forgiveness, that’s the key. I try to be as good as I can, to be a good person. I pray every night before bed and I believe that if it’s meant to be it’s meant to be.”

What he means by “it” isn’t entirely clear. On one level, it is his boxing, his dreams of being the world’s greatest heavyweight, of emulating countryman Lennox Lewis’ aims to be undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.

But in a man of contradictions as Fury, there is another side to “it”. Less as a fighter and more a father of two, he concludes: “Hopefully I can live happily ever after.”